But one word from the poem did: chortle-with its suggestion of “chuckle” and “snort”-was useful enough and obvious enough in its meaning that it ended up in the dictionary.Ĭarroll also gave us a helpful word for discussing new words: portmanteau, which, prior to the publication of Through the Looking Glass, meant “two-compartment suitcase.” Humpty Dumpty used it to explain the mysterious vocabulary of Jabberwocky to Alice: “Well, ‘slithy’ means ‘lithe and slimy.’ ‘Lithe’ is the same as ‘active.’ You see it’s like a portmanteau-there are two meanings packed up into one word.” Few of these words caught on-“brillig,” for example, hasn’t moved into general usage. Among the first literary examples is the poem Jabberwocky, found in Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll’s 1871 sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Carroll also gave us a helpful word for discussing new words: portmanteau, which, prior to the publication of Through the Looking Glass, meant “two-compartment suitcase.”Īnd then there’s the creation of words just for the fun of it.
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